The worlds of sprint car racing and stock car racing have been increasingly overlapping in recent years. NASCAR Cup Series driver Christopher Bell is someone with expertise in both fronts, having driven sprint cars extensively before transitioning and becoming one of the most important drivers in the Joe Gibbs Racing garage.
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It is with that authority that Bell wants the crews in sprint car racing to adopt a practice that those in stock car racing take very seriously. He was in an interview with The Driver’s Project when he pointed out how NASCAR is extremely dialed in on the little details of performance and pays special emphasis to aerodynamics.
This is something that sprint car racing needs to do yet. Bell explained, “I feel like the aero side of dirt track racing is so raw and untapped. The NASCAR teams are literally wind tunneling as much as they can. There are rules on it now, but they’re counting down to the single counts of downforce that really matter.”
In the meantime, sprint car racing crews are just throwing wickers at the car because the belief is that two-inch wickers create more downforce than one-inch wickers. This isn’t something that science backs.
Things are done based on “what feels best” and not based on actual technical studies. Bell wants this situation to change.
Bell points out the difference between the Chili Bowl and the Daytona 500
In a recent interview with FloRacing, Bell was asked to lay out the differences between the Chili Bowl Nationals and the Daytona 500. Both these marquee events have their own fan bases, and he had to be careful with his choice of words. But the insights he delivered were largely agreeable and made a lot of sense.
He said, “The Daytona 500 is the biggest race of the NASCAR schedule. But it’s only the NASCAR guys. Whereas anybody can enter the Chili Bowl. So, it’s kind of a barometer for drivers where everybody is there. You get a lot of top drivers from different disciplines and people who don’t compete against each other all the time. It’s a great show.”
Bell himself has won the Chili Bowl Nationals, competing against a wide range of drivers, and is pleased at the fact that he could do it. Hopefully, he will become a Daytona 500 champion as well in the near future.
